public policy

Subscribe to public policy

Sometimes, cases that seem like a no-brainer are anything but.  Just ask the Town of Stratford which finally won an appeal to the Connecticut Appellate Court.

The case, Stratford v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 15 (download here), will be officially released next week. 

Firing for lying? Caution ahead

The case arises from the town’s termination of a police officer.  After suffering an epilectic seizure and striking two parked cars, the officer was requested to go to a physician for a fitness for duty exam after his own physician cleared him for work.  

After the independent medical exam, the employer’s HR director “discovered discrepancies between the report and the medical information supplied to the town by [the employee’s] personal physician.”

The employer then charged the employee with violating police department policy for lying during the independent medical examination and he was subsequently terminated after a hearing.

The case went to arbitration. For those who are skeptical of arbitration, you can imagine what happened next.

The arbitration panel reinstated the police officer concluding that termination was “excessive” and that “lying about his physical and mental condition to doctors that could return (or prevent) [him] to work is understandable because [he] wants [his] job back.”

The employer moved to vacate the arbitration decision. Notably, its rationale was limted to police officers, arguing that Connecticut public policy encourages honesty by police officers. The Superior Court disagreed, but the town found a friendlier audience in its appeal to the Appellate Court. 

We agree with the town that these authorities plainly demonstrate a clear public policy in Connecticut in favor of honest police officers and, consequently, against lying by police officers in connection with their employment.

As a result, the Court overturned the arbitration result and the termination is allowed to stand. (No word yet whether this will be appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court.)

What does this mean for employers? Two things.
Continue Reading Lying to Doctors for Fitness for Duty Exam Can Still Get You Fired… But Only If You’re a Police Officer

In a post from earlier this week , I indicated that a new Appellate Court decision had some interesting points on wrongful discharge claim that were worth exploring. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court released a FMLA decision that made a few headlines.

But what I didn’t mention was this: the takeaways from these cases are something only your company’s lawyer is going to love.

First, the Supreme Court case (Coleman v. State of Maryland).  It answered the “burning” question of whether public employees could sue under the “self-care” provisions of the FMLA. 

Not that many of us were asking the question in the first place. …
Continue Reading Decisions Only Your In-House Lawyer Could Love

"The United States is recommending U.S. citizens defer all non-essential travel to Bahrain."

Have you seen this headline? It’s from 20 years ago.

But strangely, that same headline made a reappearance this week. Don’t remember the last time it happened? Well, you should because a major Connecticut Supreme Court case arose out of it. 

And…

An employee who contended that he was fired after complaining about a physically threatening co-worker cannot bring a wrongful discharge claim, in a decision released by the Connecticut District Court.  The case, Ferrer v. T.L. Cannon Management Corp. (download here), does suggest, however, a way for employees to bring such claims in the future — with some artful language in the complaint. 

Readers of this blog will be aware  that Connecticut is an at-will employment state, absent some contractual promises or some other exception that may apply. In general terms, that means is that an employee can quit any time for any reason and that an employer can fire the employee at any time for any reason (so long as it’s not an illegal one such as race, gender, etc.) 

Two Connecticut Supreme Court cases are required reading for this concept: Sheets v. Teddy’s Frosted Food, Inc. 179 Conn. 471, 427 A.2d 385 (1980), and Parsons v. United Technologies Corp. 243. Conn. 66, 89, 700 A.2d 655 (1997).  [Disclosure: I worked on the Parsons matter.] 

Those cases created a notable exception to the at will standard:

  • In Sheets, the Court held that an at-will employee may sue for wrongful discharge if he is fired for complaining about, or refusing to participate in, his employer’s violation of public policy.
  • In Parsons, the Court ruled that the public policy embodied in the state statute requiring employers “to exercise reasonable care to provide for [their] servants a reasonably safe place in which to work,” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31- 49, provides grounds for a wrongful discharge claim when an atwill employee is fired for refusing to work in conditions posing
    an “objectively substantial risk of death, disease or serious bodily injury.”

So, in the Ferrer case, the District Court was asked to extend the Parsons exception to a situation where the employee was allegedly discharged after informing his manager that a co-worker threw a punch at him and missed. The complaint also alleged that the co-worker assaulted another employee about a year earlier.…

Continue Reading Court Examines The Parameters of the Public Policy Requiring Employers to Provide a Reasonably Safe Workplace

UPDATED 2/10/09

Sometimes, by coincidence, two unrelated decision get released in close proximity to one another that they bring some greater clarity to the law.

Yesterday, I discussed a Connecticut Superior Court cacourtesy morgue file - NOT public domainse that found that certain discussions did not create an employment contract and that the employee was properly classified as "at-will".

Earlier…